Pumpkin Risotto, three ways

Andy and I discovered the joys of pressure cooker risotto over a year ago now - some chopping, less than 15 minutes of cooking, and voila! Dinner on the table, and not a bad rendition of risotto for no stirring. As such, it has become a pretty regular staple in our weeknight meal rotation, especially since pumpkin is one of the few veggies that is good and available and inexpensive year-round up here.

As I recounted in my original post, one time we improvised, using a thick soup in place of stock in the recipe.  That was a disaster. But more recently, we have tried some safer improvisations, with some success.

Our first rendition is based on the recipe for pumpkin risotto from Urban Vegan - in fact, the only real difference is that our version is pressure cooked. Red wine, sage, sundried tomatoes and pumpkin. And we added broccoli, because, yum. To get the textures right, we put the broccoli stems in early and pressure cooked them. The florets were stirred in after we took the risotto of the pressure, and sitting in the hot risotto for 5 minutes cooked them enough for our liking.

The second variety is herb-centric. Pumpkin, red capsicum, green peas, and sosomany herbs. There were garlic chives, basil, and parsley mixed through this and they made it delicious. The herbs were added right at the end before we served, so they stayed nice and fresh.

Our final attempt was a little on the weirder side, and wasn't perfect but could easily get there. It was a thai-inspired pumpkin risotto. We cooked the rice in some lime juice, instead of the usual wine that is in risotto; lime zest, lemon grass, ginger and garlic flavoured the stock; pumpkin, red capsicum and spinach were then finished off with just a splash of coconut cream. Unfortunately, the risotto was pretty soupy even before the coconut cream was added - I think more liquid came off the pumpkin than I was expecting. Still, the flavours were fab and thai-inspired risotto should totally be a Thing.